Augmented seventh and perfect octave

[Musicologo]

Ok, I'm going to make music using NOT a 12 tuned keyboard. The goal is to make the sound with perfect ratios on the computer.

My harmony is based on seventh chords (a bit like the Gymnopedies of Satie). However instead of using major 7ths, I use augmented 5ths and 7ths.

I have a base scale kinda like c-d-e-f#-g#-a#-[b#-c].

So now I can build a chord on 3 perfect major thirds.

[c3-e3-g#3-b#3]

Do I get a clear difference between the traditional

[c3-e3-g#3-c4]

In this case I DO have a difference between the augmented seventh and the octave.

Major third = 5/4

So, 5/4*5/4*5/4 = 125/64 = 1,953

So actually, my b#3 is a little lower than my c4 (2,000).

The question that now arises is:
If I really have two different sounds for what is "almost" the same note, when should I use b# and when should I use c?

Or should I use both at same time?

It makes more sense

[c3-e3-g#3-c4] or [c3-e3-g#3-b#3] or even [c3-e3-g#3-b#3-c4] ?


When making I - #V it makes more sense:

[g#3-b#3-d4-f#4] or [g#3-c4-e4-f#4] ?

Comments, please...

[Odeval]

waoo! would it be a question of taste?
do you have also a Cb?
then the complete ratio would be B Cb B# C?
anyway it's very interresting,i'm going to dig this.
excuse me but,which software do you use?

[llatham]

So actually, my b#3 is a little lower than my c4 (2,000).

Yes, but will this difference be discernible to the average listener? Will they be able to tell when you're using B# or C?

The question that now arises is:
If I really have two different sounds for what is "almost" the same note, when should I use b# and when should I use c?

It's music, which is an art form, which means you can use either one, or both, whenever you like. Have you tried it? How does it sound? Does one have a different character than the other?

IMHO, this is one of the dangers in modern compositional thinking is that people get too caught up in one aspect of something and fail to relate that into musical meaning.

Ok, with this tuning, you're able to produce 3 "perfect" Major 3rds:

C-E
E-G#
G#-B#.

Ok, now, why? Is there some musical reason you want these thirds to be pure? If so, then the answer is clear, you use the B# in four note sonorities, and the C in three note sonorities when it is an octave doubling of the "root" noted. You use both if you've got a five note sonority that includes a doubling of the "root" (this all of course assumes you're relating everything back to a more traditional chord-based scale-based type of music).

But, my fear is, you seem to be more interested in the fact that you're making pure Major 3rds rather than making Major 3rds for a specific musical end (I'm just inferring this from the post, so forgive me if I'm wrong).

It's kind of like saying "hey, I'm going to use this synthetic 6 note scale" and then not making any music with it - just using it for the sake of using it.

Most of the non-12-tet tuned music I hear seems more interested in tempering intervals to make them "pure" on a case-by-case basis (so it's not unlike Barbershop singing) but they tend to write the same type of music that anyone else would write using 12-tet - which seems kind of counter to using non-12-tet tuning in the first place!

HTH,
Steve

[jancivil]

Ok, I'm going to make music using NOT a 12 tuned keyboard. The goal is to make the sound with perfect ratios on the computer.

My harmony is based on seventh chords (a bit like the Gymnopedies of Satie). However instead of using major 7ths, I use augmented 5ths and 7ths.

I have a base scale kinda like c-d-e-f#-g#-a#-[b#-c].

So now I can build a chord on 3 perfect major thirds.

[c3-e3-g#3-b#3]

Do I get a clear difference between the traditional

[c3-e3-g#3-c4]

In this case I DO have a difference between the augmented seventh and the octave.

Major third = 5/4

So, 5/4*5/4*5/4 = 125/64 = 1,953

So actually, my b#3 is a little lower than my c4 (2,000).

The question that now arises is:
If I really have two different sounds for what is "almost" the same note, when should I use b# and when should I use c?

Or should I use both at same time?

This seems, honestly, as simply a question of spelling. Does the application you are using to create this thing have some requirement where the *note name* actually means something? Cause it sounds like you're using ratios to specify the diff.

IE: why does it matter?

[Musicologo]

Ok, after the answers I've become desmotivated. The idea was exactly to have perfect ratios defined in contrast to the 12 TET.

But as Steve and Jancivil asked: why? What's the point?

I guess it would be a theoretical point than a pratical one, and music is pratical not theoretical.

In the pratice what I get is that my B#3 just sounds like the C4 a bit off-tune.
So the sound it's not very nice.

In conclusion: the idea was not so good after all...

SO...

I started to play with the detuned piano without having much concerns about what I was doing on the paper, then. Just for the aesthetical sake of it.
In other words, this time I started with the pratical part of it, not worried about theory, if it was B# of C or whatever.

I got a "strange" tune that sometimes seems a bit off-key but I like it.
I will post it here so that you can hear and comment if you like. It's made using some raw sounds and then Octopus Lynplug synthetisers.

After 1:16 the weird-tuning will be more audible when I modulate.

http://media.putfile.com/Ingrids-rescue

Overall, it's just a "soundtrack" like tune.

[jancivil]

Here's my real question:

That, whole tone scale, is a true symmetrical division of 12 ET.
Which, and I could simply be ignorant, seems to be the idea of it.

I mean, maybe there is something manufactured somewhere (cf. gamelan instruments) that has an actual
division according to the natural acoustics of the construction, roughly sculpted to get 'six more/less equidistant' sounds. But, I doubt it's anything but an artificial construct.

IE: there might be more interesting divisions to artificially apply ratii to.

[buckshead]

Trick here is to know who is going to listen and notice.

I had a guy work for me who had been in the Navy as a radio operator for 25 years. When I was trying to tune a guitar he said, " The second string there is 8 Hertz above the same note on the first string". You see he'd been trained over years to be able to hear tiny differences in tones using this to tune radios and stuff. I couldnt hear this difference. Small differences beat, but from 5 Hz up it takes training that your "man in the street" hasnt got, so he wont hear this effect.

There's only a few cents difference, so why bother except for arts sake.

[Sixofour]

G# A# B C# D# E F# Yes, its off topic, but its a spiffy scale anyways. An alternative to OPs scale.

[Meffy]

ratii

*tsk* Ratios. If you want to be all Latin, rationes. But the Latin word ratio does not mean the same thing as the mathematical term ratio does in English, it means reason or rationale, so rationes wouldn't really be right in this application.

Beg pardon. It had to be said.

[nuffink]

People called Romanes they go the house?

[Meffy]

All Gaul into tres parties dividendum est.

[nuffink]

Caeser et sum lam forte
Brutus et arat
Caeser sic in omnibus
Brutus sic in at

[duncanparsons]

oh man, I wish I could laugh out loud... It's gone 1AM, and I have sleeping folk in the house!



DSP

[herodotus]

"Major third = 5/4

So, 5/4*5/4*5/4 = 125/64 = 1,953"

The major third of equal temperament is not the major third of Just Intonation or Pythagorean intonation.

Only the latter are accurately described as 5:4. The equally tempered major third that we are all familiar with is much sharper or 'wider'.

The free Proteus VX thingie that EMU is giving away (it was in the kvr news recently) features a variable tuning system. In addition to 12 tone ET and some weird derivatives, there are also various incarnations of Just Intonation. I STRONGLY urge people who have never heard Just Intonation to download this thing and play on one of the 'prettier' patches in Just Intonation. The difference is obvious and striking and very educational.

[someone called simon]

I got a "strange" tune that sometimes seems a bit off-key but I like it.
I will post it here so that you can hear and comment if you like. It's made using some raw sounds and then Octopus Lynplug synthetisers.

After 1:16 the weird-tuning will be more audible when I modulate.

http://media.putfile.com/Ingrids-rescue

Overall, it's just a "soundtrack" like tune.

I like. it would sound completely different in standard tuning. Music maybe be practical, but you are 'allowed' to be interested in it from a theoretical viewpoint too.

the theoretical approach has led you to a kind of sound you couldn't have got otherwise. I think there's definitely room for both in music, but being theoretical seems to be really unfashionable.